LOS ANGELES — The thick cloud hanging over the 2023 U.S. Open in its first visit to Los Angeles since 1948? That’s not smog. Not June Gloom. It’s chaos.
Complete and utter huh wut.
It’s an entire sport reeling still from last week’s announcement of the proposed PGA Tour-LIV Golf mega-merger: “The whole thing,” last year’s U.S. Open champ Matt Fitzpatrick said Monday, “is confusing.”
And it’s a major golf championship being played on a course almost no one knows, at the esteemed but exclusive L.A. Country Club: “On 15, it can play 90 yards?” asked a surprised Cam Smith, one of the LIV golfers and the winner of last year’s Open Championship at the Old Course at St. Andrew.
All that disarray rocking the game might make it anybody’s ballgame – especially for somebody out here who does know what to expect.
For someone like UCLA’s Omar Morales.
He not only has some ever-more-rare clarity on his immediate golfing future – he’s got two more years at UCLA – but he’s also got a handle on LACC that is rare in this field of 156 of the world’s best golfers.
Morales, a native of Puebla, Mexico, said Monday that he used to play the course, which is just about a mile from campus, with his teammates about three times a month as a Bruin freshman. So he knows the ins and outs of a North Course that this week will deliver a 7,423-yard, par-70 test.
“I like that it’s in the middle of the city and it’s close to campus,” said Morales, whose best round at LACC so far, best as he can remember: 67 from the back. “It’s just a great championship golf course. It’s very demanding in every single aspect of the game, it’s just a cool course, overall.”
A cool customer himself, Morales enters play – he’ll tee off in the first group Thursday, at 6:45 a.m., paired with South African Deon Germishuys and Alabamian Jacob Solomon – having earned a berth at the June 5 qualifier at nearby Hillcrest Country Club. Morales carded the best score of 88 hopefuls, shooting 12-under over two rounds (65-65).
He rolled into qualifying having recorded a 70.7 scoring average in his final five events of the collegiate season and having claimed his first collegiate tournament title in April, when he shot 13 under and won a one-hole playoff at the El Macero Classic at El Macero Country Club.
Now he joins former Bruin Patrick Cantlay in this year’s U.S. Open field, and he’s one of 11 collegians – six of them representatives of the Pac-12 Conference.
“I’m just super-pumped, super-excited; I need to calm myself down a little bit,” said Morales, whose voice and demeanor did little to betray any such nervous energy after nine practice holes.
It’ll help that the 20-year-old without experience at a tournament of this magnitude knows enough about the course to have a favorite hole: No. 6, a 330-yard par 4. “Because there’s so many ways to play that hole,” Morales said, “and one just little small tiny mistake can turn out to be a big number.”
That’s more knowledge in his bag than many of the other golfers who showed up in L.A. this week green about a course that could prove dry and fast but possibly play slow … maybe?
“I have no idea,” Fitzpatrick said in a pre-tournament news conference at LACC, in one of the many massive tents that signal the arrival of a major golf tournament. “From the pictures I’ve seen, it looks fantastic. … I guess in this day and age you’d like to think there might be some artificial intelligence you could use to kind of plot your way around, I guess. That’s probably something I’ll have to look into.
“I played it in 2018 (but) I can’t really remember too much about it. I did walk it (in February) without playing it. It’s kind of hard to remember. I couldn’t really give you any insight into that.”
Into that or the existential angst having to do with the future of professional golf.
“Well, I think I just don’t know what’s going on,” Fitzpatrick said. “I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on. Are we signing with the PIF (Public Investment Fund’s), are we not signing with the PIF? I have no idea.
“Even though I guess it is confusing, it’s pretty clear that nobody knows what’s going on apart from about four people in the world.”
Or as Smith put it: “I really know as much as you guys know, to be honest. I’m just taking it as it goes along. I guess if anything comes up, I’ll let you guys know, but for the moment it’s just trying to play the best golf I can and trying to win a U.S. Open.”
“I was so sad about that.” #USOpen champion Matt Fitzpatrick on giving back his trophy. 🏆 pic.twitter.com/4qFhlrdHrB
— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) June 12, 2023
